n letters, written as from you,
Signed with your name, acknowledging receipts
Of certain sums of money, dated London."
"No money have I had but what I've earned,"
Was my reply; "and who should send me money?"
Said he: "I have a carriage at the door;
I would learn more of this; you'll not object
To take a seat with me? Thank you; that's right."

Leaving the patient in good hands, we went,
And through the noisy streets drove to the Park.
Then all I'd ever known about my parents
He drew from me; and all my history
Since I had parted from him; noted down
Carefully my address, and gave me his.
Then to my lodgings driving with me back,
He left me with a _Benedicite_!
He's rich: has he been sending money, then?
What means it all? Conjecture finds no clew.

VII.

Gently as thistle-downs are borne away
From the dry stem, went Ellen yesterday.
I heard her dying utterance; it was:
"I'm coming, Teddy! Bless you, dear Miss Linda!"
No priest was by, so sudden was her going.
When Blount came in, there was no tenderness
In his sleek, gluttonous look; although he tried,
Behind his handkerchief, to play the mourner.
What will he do without a drudge to tread on?
Counting himself a privileged lord and master,
He'll condescend to a new victim soon,
And make some patient waiter a sad loser.

VIII.

"Some patient waiter!" Such a one I know.
There was a time when I resolved, if ever
I could secure a modest competence,
I would be married; and the competence
Is now secure--but where is my resolve?
Shall I conclude 'tis all fatality?
Leave it to chance, and take no active step
Myself to seek what I so hope to find?
Accepting it as heaven's fixed ordinance,
That man should change his single lot at will,
But woman be the sport of circumstance,
A purposeless and passive accident,
Inert as oysters waiting for a tide,
But not like oysters, sure of what they wait for?
"Ah! woman's strength is in passivity,"
Fastidio says, shaking his wise, wise head,
And withering me with a disdainful stare.
Nay! woman's strength is in developing,
In virtuous ways, all that is best in her.
No superstitious waiting then be mine!
No fancy that in coy, alluring arts,
Rather than action, modest and sincere,
Woman most worthily performs her part.
Here am I twenty-five, and all alone
In the wide world; yet having won the right,
By my